Google enhances Street View for non-cars

Mike Luttrell, 1st March 2011

Google is working to add to the number of off-road Street View scenes online, as it prepares to take a specially equipped tricycle through some of the world's most famous trails and spots that a car can't get to.
Google's Street View is powered by a collection of millions of images captured while a crazy-looking, well-equipped car drives by the streets and takes 360-degree shots of the area as it does so. But that only gives you so much.

In 2009, Google also equipped a tricycle with the same kind of imaging technology and began taking Street View images of remote areas around the world. It's been rarely used so far, with some famous hiking trails around the world getting the Street View treatment.

Now Google wants to go full force with the trike. The company told the San Jose Mercury News that amusement parks and other famous attractions like the Santa Monica pier in California are just some of the places it wants to capture.

The National Botanic Gardens in Dublin and the Chateau de Chenonceaux in France are also on the Street View horizon.

The Street View tricycle weighs 250 pounds and is a whopping nine feet long, so whomever the lucky Google employee is who gets to ride the monstrosity will be getting a pretty good workout from the ordeal.